The Gastrogurard website:
(
http://gastrogard.us.merial.com/faq.asp ) says the below:
Quote:
"Like human ulcers, stomach acid appears to be the main cause of equine
ulcers. Excess acid can "eat" through the protective lining and damage the
stomach. The high prevalence of ulcers seen in performance horses results
from many factors including the way the horses are fed and managed.
Intensity of training also may contribute to ulcer formation, but the exact
cause remains undetermined. Helicobacter pylori, bacteria that are a factor
in the development of human ulcers, have not been isolated from horse
stomachs and are currently not considered to be a cause of ulcers in horses.
In addition, grains and pelleted concentrates can increase the production of
gastrin, a hormone that stimulates acid production. Therefore, horses that
are fed high grain diets are more likely to have higher gastric acidity than
horses offered free choice forage without grain."
I suppose the key phrase in this paragraph is "...the exact cause in
undetermined." Thus, no one knows for sure the exact cause of equine
ulcers! It is all a guess, and I would venture to say that most vets and
drug companies consider the above paragraph to be generally true.
My personal view is that since many foals and performance horses seem
prone to ulcers, an infection may be the likely cause for both. In foals,
you have an underdeveloped immune system and in race horses, you have
stressed animals with impaired immune systems. I think most horsemen
appreciate most race horses as being emotional animals that are stressed. A
common symptom of a emotionally stressed horse is that they go off feed.
Further, it is quite common to see many horses "shake", waiting for a race,
etc, etc. You can bet this is a function of mental stress! I mean, why
shouldn't this be? Why are horses immune from mental stresses while humans
are? I think it is a pretty well known fact that stress in humans causes a
reduction in immune response and a reduction in Hydrochloric acid formation
in the stomach. You may say: "Hey, wait a minute! I thought the conventional
logic was that ulcers are caused by an over production of acid!" If that is
true, then please explain how stress, which often causes a decrease in
stomach HCl acid can cause ulcers?
I will repost my explanation for that as explained by Dr. Fergusson from
the 1930s:
Quote:
"In health, the acid balance is maintained by the normal production of
hydrochloric acid in certain cells of the stomach; should this production
fall short of bodily necessity, the balance must be made up. Other acids,
which are the products of decomposition in the body, such as lactic acid,
fatty acids, carbonic acid, uric acid and others, are called in to fill the
HCl deficiency. These however being abnormal constituents of the great
chemical laboratory of the body (HCl is the only normally produced acid of
the body), are ill-adapted to the requirements, for they are unable to keep
in solution many of the salts which must be thrown off as waste matter in
bodily excretions, the sweat, the expired air, the urine and the feces. In
the effort for the body to provide acid of some sort these harmful acids,
become a monkey-wench in the machinery and the condition known as "acidosis"
results with symptoms of general systemic poisoning. Conversely, when the
hydrogen-ion concentration of lymph falls into the acid side, due to excess
production of lactic acid, fatty acids, carbonic acids, uric acid and like
poisons, there is an effort on the part of the body to neutralize these
with alkaline salts, such as calcium, sodium, potassium, ammonium and
others. These also, being foreign to bodily economy, produce the condition
known as "alkalosis", but often attended with general collapse."
Thus, you see that a stressed race horse which does not produce proper
amounts of HCl acid may end up with a stomach that is filled with the wrong
type of acid aggravating an ulcer condition or, if my suspicion is correct,
allow a harmful equine stomach bacterium to flourish and actually cause an
ulcer. The "body terrain" often dictates the body as being healthy or
diseased! The wrong terrain (low HCl content in the stomach) may open the
horse up to an environment hospitable for as of yet unknown, equine ulcer
bacterium.
I tend to view the past performance of therapeutics in the
human ulcer to be very telling. Exactly the same old explanation for the
human ulcer is now being applied to the equine ulcer's cause. That is, a
condition of stress, mismanagement, wrong food, which causes increased acid
in the stomach were all said to be the cause of human ulcers in the past. We
found out only recently how wrong we were. I suggest you google the Aussy
researcher that discovered the human, Helicobacter pylori. It is a really
fascinating story of how a very tenacious researcher discovered that
bacterium and how he fought his way against a preconceived science bias to
prove the existence of that ulcer causing bacteria. This was a very hard bug
to detect, I might add and there is no reason to think that a similar
bacteria may not also be involved in the horse. Just because we have not
cultured one as of yet, does not mean that one is not the cause, hence, the
human example! Actually another very interesting website has this to say
about Helicobacter pylori and the horse:
https://vtechworks.lib.vt.edu/bitstream ... sequence=1Quote:
"Traditionally Helicobacter was not thought to be present in the equine
stomach, although why such a carte blanche assumption was made is unclear.
Whilst it is true that Helicobacter has never been cultured from the equine
stomach, an increasing amount of recent circumstantial evidence suggests
that it is present."
Mmmmmmmmm, maybe it is the cause! If so, one needs more than the soothing qualities of slippery elm or Aloe vera to combat it.